Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (18 page)

A
fter dinner, Henry insisted on doing the dishes. Samantha had done a marvelous job. When Henry walked in, he half-expected to find take-out boxes from the Junbo Seafood Restaurant hidden beneath the sink or at least oyster-sauce-stained recipe books strewn about. Instead, the kitchen was neat and tidy – she’d washed the pans as she cooked, the way Henry did. He dried and put away what few dishes remained and put some serving platters in the sink to soak.

When he poked his head out to thank her, it was too late. She’d already kicked off her shoes and was asleep on the couch, snoring gently. Henry looked at the half-empty bottle of plum wine and smiled before covering her up with a green afghan Ethel had knitted. Ethel had always been crafty, but knitting had become a necessary pastime. It gave her something to do with her hands while she sat there during
chemotherapy. Henry had been amazed that she could knit so well with an IV in her arm, but she didn’t seem to mind.

Henry felt a draft and noticed the front door was open. He could see his son’s silhouette behind the screen door. Moths flitted in the porch light, pinging against the bulb, helplessly drawn to something they could never have.

‘Why don’t you stay the night?’ Henry asked, as he opened the screen door. He sat down next to Marty, waiting for an answer. ‘She’s asleep, and it’s too late to be out driving.’

‘Says who?’ Marty snapped back.

Henry frowned a little. He knew his son hated it when he appeared to be bossing him around, even if the offer was genial. These were the times when he and Marty seemed to argue for the sake of arguing. And no one ever won.

‘I’m just saying that it’s late …’

‘Sorry, Pops,’ Marty said, checking his reaction. ‘I think I’m just tired. This year has been a rough one.’ He palmed an unlit cigarette. Ethel had finally succumbed to the cancer when it spread to her lungs. Henry had quit smoking years ago, but Marty still struggled – having quit when his mother became ill but sneaking smokes now and then. Henry knew how guilty his son felt about smoking while his mom was dying of lung cancer.

Marty tossed the cigarette into the street. ‘I can’t help thinking about Mom and how much things have changed the last few years.’

Henry nodded, looking out across the sidewalk. He could see into the front window of his neighbors’ house. Their TV was on, and they were watching a Hispanic variety show of some kind. The neighborhood keeps changing, Henry thought
as he looked down the block past the Korean bakery and a dry cleaner run by a nice Armenian family.

‘Can I ask you something, Pops?’

Henry nodded again.

‘Did you keep Mom at home to spite me?’

Henry watched a low-ride pickup truck boom down the alleyway. ‘What do you think?’ he asked, knowing the answer but surprised that his son would ask such a direct question.

Marty stood up and walked to the cigarette he’d tossed into the street. Henry thought he might pick up the dirty cigarette and light it. Instead Marty stepped on it, grinding it to pieces. ‘I used to think that. It didn’t make sense to me, you know? I mean, this isn’t exactly a plush neighborhood – we could have put her someplace with a view, with a rec room.’ Marty shook his head. ‘I think I get it now. It doesn’t matter how
nice
home is – it just matters that it
feels
like home.’

Henry listened to the booming truck in the distance.

‘Did Yay Yay know about Keiko?’ Marty asked. ‘Did Mom know?’

Henry stretched and sat back. ‘Your grandfather knew, because I told him.’ He looked at his son, trying to gauge his reaction. ‘He stopped talking to me after that …’

Henry had told his son little about his childhood, and stories of Marty’s grandfather were seldom shared. Marty rarely asked. Most of what he knew he’d gleaned from his mother.

‘But what about Mom?’

Henry let out a big sigh and rubbed his cheeks where he’d forgotten to shave in the commotion of the last few days. The stubble reminded him of all those months, years caring for Ethel. How days would pass without his ever leaving the
house, how he’d shave for no real reason, just out of habit. Then he’d occasionally let himself go – living with someone who didn’t notice, who couldn’t notice.

‘I’m not sure what your mom knew. We didn’t talk about it.’

‘You didn’t talk about old flames?’ Marty asked.

‘What old flames?’ Henry laughed, a little. ‘I was the first boy she’d ever dated. It was different back then – not like now.’

‘But you had one, evidently.’ Marty held out a sketchbook that had been sitting on the steps next to his jacket.

Henry took it, flipping through the pages, touching the impressions where Keiko’s pencil had danced across the paper. Feeling the texture of the drawings, he wondered why she had left her sketchbooks. Why she’d left everything behind. Why he had too.

All these years, Henry had loved Ethel. He had been a loyal and dedicated husband, but he would walk blocks out of his way to avoid the Panama Hotel and the memory of Keiko. Had he known her belongings were still there …

Henry handed the sketchbook back to his son.

‘You don’t want it?’ Marty asked.

Henry shrugged his shoulders. ‘I have the record. That’s enough.’
A broken record
, he thought. Two halves that will never play again.

W
hen Monday came, Henry was still beaming from finding Keiko and seeing Chaz hounded by the police. There was a bounce in his step as he left school and ran, walked, then ran some more, weaving around the smiling fishmongers of South King all the way over to South Jackson. People on the streets seemed happy. President Roosevelt had announced that Lieutenant Colonel James Doolittle had led a squadron of B-25s on a bombing raid of Tokyo. It seemed that morale had been boosted everywhere. When asked where the planes had launched from, the president had joked, telling reporters they'd come from
Shangri-La
– which happened to be the name of a jazz club Henry wandered by on his way to find Sheldon.

Locating him this late in the afternoon was an easy task. Henry just followed his ears, homing in on the bluesy notes coming from Sheldon's instrument, a tune Henry recognized –
called ‘Writin' Paper Blues.' It was one Sheldon had played in the club with Oscar. Most appropriate considering Henry still had to round up stationery for Keiko, among other things.

Plunked down on an apartment step near where Sheldon was performing, Henry spotted a small mountain of change in the open sax case. That, and a vinyl record, a 78, propped up on a little wooden display. It was the same kind Henry's mother used in the kitchen to display what few pieces of fine china they could afford. A small, hand-painted sign read ‘As featured on Oscar Holden's new disk record.'

To Henry, the crowd looked about the same, but to his pleasant surprise, they clapped with much more vigor as Sheldon played his heart out. They clapped harder as he ended on a sweet, stinging note that echoed in the clatter and din of nickels, dimes, and quarters pinging into the sax case. The mound of coins was more money than Henry had ever seen, in pocket change anyway.

Sheldon tipped his hat to the last of the crowd as they dispersed. ‘Henry, where you been, young sir? I haven't seen you running the streets on a weekend for two, three weeks now.'

It was true. Henry had been so busy at Camp Harmony, and hiding that fact from his parents, that he hadn't seen Sheldon since E-day. He felt a little guilty about his absences. ‘I've picked up a weekend job – at Camp Harmony, it's that place—'

‘I know. I know all about
that
place – been in the paper now for weeks. But how – tell me, how on God's green earth did this bit of intrigue come about … this job?'

It was a long story. And Henry didn't even know the
ending. ‘Can I tell you later? I'm running errands and I'm running late –
and I need a favor
.'

Sheldon was fanning himself with his hat. ‘Money? Take what you need,' he said, pointing to the case filled with silvery coins. Henry tried to guess how much was in there, twenty dollars at least, in half-dollars alone. But that wasn't the flat, round object Henry needed.

‘I need your record.'

There was a moment of stunned silence. In the distance Henry heard drums from a rehearsal upstairs at one of the other clubs.

‘That's funny, that sounded a lot like “I need your record,”' Sheldon said. ‘It sounded a lot like “I need your
last
record.” The only record I own – of my
own
playing. The only record that was left at the music store since Oscar sold them out like hotcakes just last week.'

Henry looked at his friend, biting his lip.

‘Is that what I heard?' Sheldon asked, seemingly joking, but Henry wasn't entirely sure.

‘It's for Keiko. For her birthday …'

‘Owwww.' Sheldon looked like he'd been stabbed. His eyes closed and his mouth screwed up in a grimace of pain. ‘You got me. You got me right here.' He patted his heart and cracked a toothy smile at Henry.

‘Does this mean I can have it? I can replace it. Keiko and I bought one together, but she wasn't allowed to bring it to the camp and now it's stored somewhere, I can't get to it – it's probably lost now.'

Sheldon put his hat back on and adjusted the reed on his sax. ‘You can have it. Only because it's for a
higher
power.'

Henry didn't pick up on Sheldon's gibe, otherwise he would have blushed horribly and denied that
love
was driving him in any way imaginable.

‘Thank you. I'll pay you back someday,' he said.

‘You go play that thing. You go play that thing in that camp down there. You go. I kinda like the sound of that,' Sheldon said. ‘It'd be the first time I ever played in a
white
establishment – even if it's for a bunch of Japanese folks, bit of a captive audience.'

Henry smiled and looked at Sheldon, who was obviously waiting for a reaction to this pun. Henry tucked the record under his coat and ran, yelling back, ‘Thank you, sir, and you have a fine day.' Sheldon shook his head and smiled before warming up for another afternoon performance.

Henry stopped by Woolworth's on the way home from school the next day. The old five-and-dime was unusually crowded – packed in fact. Henry counted twelve different booths, each selling war bond stamps. The Elks lodge had a booth. So did the Venture Club. Each group had a giant craft-paper thermometer showing how much they'd sold, each competing to outsell the others. One even had a life-size cut-out of Bing Crosby wearing an army uniform. ‘Make every payday bond day!' a man yelled as he passed out slices of pie and cups of coffee.

Henry waded through the crowd, past the bright red vinyl booths and spinning stools of the soda counter, heading for the back of the store. There he gathered writing paper, art supplies, fabric, and a sketchbook whose blank pages looked so promising, a future unwritten. He quickly paid a young
woman who simply smiled when she saw his button, then ran the rest of the way home, arriving maybe ten minutes late. Nothing really. Not even enough time to give his mother pause. He stashed Keiko's things with the record in an old washtub beneath the stairs in the back alley, then bounded up the steps, two at a time, light on his feet.

Things were looking up as word had already spread that Chaz and his friends had been picked up by the Seattle police for at least part of the damage they'd caused in Nihonmachi. Whether they'd actually received any punishment, no one could say. The Japanese citizens, even though they were Americans, were now considered enemy aliens – did anyone care what happened to their homes? Still, Chaz's father would probably find out soon enough that his golden boy had a heart of coal, and that was punishment enough, Henry reasoned, feeling more relief than joy.

Then there was Sheldon, who was finally enjoying the monetary fruits of his musical labors. He'd always drawn a crowd, but now it was a paying crowd, not just lookie-loos tossing in pennies.

And along with the birthday gift, the last copy of Oscar Holden's 78 record would soon be on its way to Keiko. The song was something they could share, even if a barbed-wire fence kept them apart and a machine-gun tower kept watch from above.

Despite the bitterness of all he'd seen, and the sadness of the forced exodus to Camp Harmony, things were manageable, and the war couldn't last forever. Eventually Keiko would come home, wouldn't she?

Henry whistled as he opened the door to his little apartment
and saw his parents. That was when his pursed lips fell silent and Henry lost his breath. Both of them sat at their tiny kitchen table. Spread across the table were Keiko's family albums. The ones he'd so carefully hidden beneath his dresser drawers. Hundreds of photos of Japanese families, some in traditional dress, others in military uniforms. Piles and piles of black-and-white images. Few of the people in them were smiling. But none looked as dour as his parents – their faces cemented in expressions of shock, shame, and betrayal.

His mother muttered something in disgust, her voice cracking with emotion as she banged her way to the kitchen, shaking her head.

Henry's eyes met his father's furious gaze. His father picked up a photo album, tore the spine in two, and threw it to the floor – yelling something in Cantonese. He seemed more angry at the photos themselves than at Henry. But his turn was coming. Henry knew it.

Well, at least we're probably going to have a real conversation, Henry thought. And, Father,
it's about time.

Henry set his shopping items on the table by the front door, took off his coat, and sat down in the chair opposite his father, looking down at the scattered photos of Keiko and her family – her Japanese family. Her parents' wedding photos in kimonos. Images of picture brides. Photos of an old man, probably her grandfather, in the dress uniform of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Some Japanese families had burnt these things. Other families hid their treasured memories of who they were and where they came from. Some even buried their photo albums.
Buried treasure,
Henry thought.

It had been almost eight months since his father had insisted he only speak English. That was about to change.

‘What do you have to say? Speak up!' his father was snapping in Cantonese.

Before Henry could answer, his father lashed out.

‘I send you to school. I negotiate your way – into a
special
school. I do this for
you
. A top white school. And what happens? Instead of studying, you're making eyes with this Japanese girl. Japanese! She's a daughter of the butchers of my people.
Your
people. Their blood is on her! She stinks of that blood!'

‘She's American,' Henry protested, speaking softly in Cantonese. The words felt strange. Foreign. Like stepping onto a frozen lake, unsure if it would hold your weight or send you crashing through to the icy depths.

‘Look! Look with your own eyes.' Henry's father held up a page from an album, practically shoving it in Henry's face. ‘This is not American!' He pointed at the image of a stately man in traditional Japanese dress. ‘If the FBI find this here – in our home, our Chinese American home – they can arrest us. Take everything. They can throw us in jail and fine us five thousand dollars for helping the enemy.'

‘She's not the enemy,' Henry said, speaking a little louder, his heart racing and his hands beginning to shake, trembling with frustration – with anger he never allowed himself to feel. ‘You don't even know her. You've never met her.' He clenched his jaw and gritted his teeth.

‘I don't need to – she's Japanese!'

‘She was born in the same hospital I was born in, the same year I was born. She's an
American
!' Henry shouted back, so loudly it frightened even himself. He'd never spoken that
way to any grown-up, let alone his own father, whom he was taught to revere and respect.

His mother had walked out of the kitchen for a moment to remove a flower vase from the table. He saw her, a look of shock and disappointment on her face that Henry would ever be so disobedient. The look quickly faded to a quiet acceptance, but with it, so much guilt settled on Henry's small shoulders. He rested his head in his hands, ashamed for speaking so loudly in front of his mother. She turned away, as if he hadn't said a thing. As if he weren't there. She swept back into the kitchen before Henry could say another word.

When Henry turned back, his father was already at the open window with an armload of Keiko's photos. He looked back at Henry, on his face a blank expression that was probably a mask of his disappointment. Then he dropped the photos, the albums, and boxes. They scattered to the ground, covering the the alley with white squares, lost faces staring back at no one.

Henry bent down to pick up the torn album. His father snatched it from his hands and tossed it too. Henry heard the pieces hitting the pavement outside, wet slapping sounds.

‘She was born here. Her family was born here. You weren't even born here,' Henry whispered to his father, who looked away, oblivious to his son's words.

He'd be thirteen in a few months; maybe this was what it meant to stop being a boy and start being something else, Henry thought as he put his coat back on and headed for the door. He couldn't leave the photos outside.

He turned to his father. ‘I'm leaving to get her photos. I told her I'd keep them for her – just until she gets back. And I'm going to keep my promise.'

His father pointed at the door. ‘If you walk out that door – if you walk out that door
now
, you are no longer part of this family. You are no longer Chinese. You are not part of us anymore. Not a part of me.'

Henry didn't even hesitate. He touched the doorknob, feeling the brass cold and hard in his hand. He looked back, speaking his best Cantonese. ‘I am what you made me, Father.' He opened the heavy door. ‘I … am an American.'